[Own Your Life] Just Own It with Difficult People!

Do you know what Color Personality Styles your colleagues and family members are?

Does it really matter to know this? Absolutely! Because how you are CONNECTING (or not connecting) with each person in your life is coming from your predominant Color Style; and if you are not “getting through” it’s because you are not “Dialing In” their Color Style which makes communicating easier for everyone involved.

Most people communicate … few actually CONNECT because we don’t know how to own who we really are, what we really want and then turn ME into WE synergistically! How do you prefer that your life play out with the people you have not been effective with up to now?

Do you work with a difficult person?
Do you live with a difficult person?
Are YOU the difficult person?

We each took a personality test in our workbooks and then the speaker began his humorous interpretation of each of the styles. This particular assessment was created by Virginia Satire and it included personalities styles labeled: Blamer, Placater, Computer, Distracter and Leveler.

The speaker had the entire audience laughing until they cried. He had me laughing too, at first, but then I gradually became more and more agitated about what I understood my husband’s style to be. By the time I got home that night, I was so upset about my husband’s personality style that it launched us into another round of our same old, drag-out argument. Both of us ended up being upset, exhausted and needing a “time out” to our separate corners of the house.

I had taken other personality assessments before, like Meyer’s Briggs. It was very extensive, but actually too thorough and complicated for a “keep it simple” person like me. I remembered nothing, and I didn’t integrate anything from it that I could readily apply. Many years after, I found myself in a position where I would be training personality styles using the Virginia Satire’s Assessment. Her instrument was in every one of the workbooks I would be using to conduct seminars: Dealing with Difficult People Seminar, Leadership Seminar, Powerful Communications for Women Seminar, Team Building Seminar.

That night, in my corner of the house, I made a decision. Once again, the power of the label and the inflammatory effects on the person receiving the “label” offered me the opportunity to turn sarcastic and demoralizing labels into descriptions that were empowering and transformative.

As I designed my personal interpretation of Satire’s work, I simply turned the information around. I re-labeled her descriptions using very specific, affirmative language, adding a light, humorous spin so people would be able to feel the relief of a new understanding of themselves and others!

Nothing is anything until you call it.If you call something a failure, then your experience of it will be failure. If you call something a success, then your experience is success. It’s all in how you decide to think about it and what you decide to call it.

Early in my travel schedule for NSG, I met another author who had developed a personality style program using the colors: red, blue, white and yellow. His interpretation of the colors categorized reds as the annoying bossy types; blues as moody artists; whites as unmotivated layabouts; and yellows as party animals. When I visited him for further discussion, he indicated that it was his belief that you are born a certain color and it’s your life’s work to “deal with it.” His book and program has helped people, and yet, it just did not fit with my sensitivity toward de-energizing labeling.

As I look back at it today, I have concluded that, over the past thirty years, we have been advancing tremendously in healing generational legacies of attitudinal and verbal pain in our relationships. What was once considered acceptable languaging in our society is now being addressed: physical and emotional abuse, neglect, and what is (or is not) politically correct.

Unnecessary sarcasm and condescending labeling is now drawing the attention of a growing number of people seeking greater civility and harmony in all of our interactions: political, religious, and social. We are also seeing this transformational trend being carried into television shows like ABC’s Primetime “What Would You Do?”

Language and labeling are so important when dealing with others. As well , they allow us to relax our own defenses long enough to be able to embrace areas that are, in fact, problematic for us.

Later, I was elected Director of Publications for the Oregon Chapter of the National Speakers Association (NSA). During our opening retreat, our NSA Chapter Liaison addressed our newly formed board of directors. Having been friends with a Color Analyst for over twenty years, she had gathered ideas from many sources for a personality assessment program based on colors.

I thoroughly enjoyed her presentation and felt more alignment with how she described colors. Most importantly, I was not agitated with my husband’s personality style that night! In fact, I started to see him with new eyes and a far greater degree of understanding and compassion. I found myself integrating the colors quickly into my thinking. I related this to everyone I was in conversation with, and discovered that previously difficult situations were now easing up dramatically.

A year later, our NSA Chapter Liaison was invited back for our annual kick-off retreat and once again gave us her personality assessment to see if there had been any changes within our group. I found it quite interesting that last year’s president-elect, who was now this year’s president, went from a yellow to a red. Which suggests that we can most certainly change to accommodate whatever a situation demands of us. We cannot only fine-tune our ability to meet situational demands, we can become virtually anybody we want to be.

Because it has made such a big difference in every conceivable area of my life, with permission and blessings, I incorporated this basic information into every communication-based training that I was doing at the time.

I began adapting the colors to the more relevant and positive aspects of the S.E.L.F. Assessment which NSG had, in my second year, used as a replacement for Satire’s assessment. I was able to pull some of my best and most humorous content that I had developed for Satire’s assessment and work it into my own presentation.

I could now see how to make this topic simple and empowering for people. I studied the leading personality assessments at that time, such as the D.I.S.C. assessment (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance), in which I found descriptions of Dominant and Compliant to be harsh, unnecessary and inflammatory to one’s psyche. Descriptions like these do not inspire people to rise up and be the best they can be.

So what I bring to you now is a culmination of my study of many assessments, combine with importantly what I’ve learned from very diverse audiences across the country. Speaking to over 20,000 people in the first two years alone gave me confirmation, changes and information to field test and develop a most effective tool for people to embrace and apply right away.

My audiences’ feedback guided me in how to design a simple system that will help you define your predominant style and also help you see how your secondary color influences your primary color. It’s necessary that we understand and accept ourselves, so that we can understand and accept the idiosyncrasies of others.

The result of all my studies had an immediate and, positive impact on my marriage, one that has continued to keep us aligned in our relationship ever since.

In creating a simple system with this information, which has been so life-changing and positively transformative for me, it is my intention that you have compassion with yourself and for those people in your life with whom you’ve been struggling.

If you work with people that you bump heads with I KNOW FOR CERTAIN you will find that with my CWC – Connecting with Colors Personality Styles UTrain Program you will be able to reach and teach everyone because you will learn how to synergistically CONNECT with every person you live, work and play with in as little as 30 seconds or less.

Hard work? Not when you know exactly what to do!

The Movies in today’s blog are included in your Connecting With Color Personality StylesUTrain Program along with Leader’s Guide, Video Training and PowerPoint Presentation Slides for engaging delivery for staff development, as well as for students K-12 if you are in education, that carries right on home to those you live, love and play with.

All you have to do is go step by step through the content and then OPEN a NEW conversation embedded with upleveled insights and instantaneous shifts in perceptions.

INCLUDED in CWC – Connecting With Colors – UTrain Program:

“What Color Personality Style Are You” for Business and Public Presentations …

To learn how you and your colleagues, friends and loved ones can all learn how to easily and effortlessly Dial In each other’s Color Styles to enjoy the very best relationships can offer take charge and stop waiting on someone else to fix this for you with my ….

UTrain: Got Mega Stress with your people? Then DIY it: Do-It-Yourself with my Connecting With Colors UTrain Program for anyone who simply wants to step up and get the information in front of their people that will change everything for the better (also for professional development trainers too).